The present invention relates generally to rotatable, power driven winches of the type having an internal gear arrangement including planetary gears for driving the winch drum. A prior art type of winch is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,577 issued Mar. 24, 1981 and entitled "Motor Vehicle Winch." In that prior art device, as well as others, the planetary gear system required gears of a considerable size and were otherwise difficult to assemble.